i'm pretty ambivalent towards the window to be honest, as many bullets dodged as opportunities missed. i'd have liked some more cover but as far as i'm concerned if we've got players who can play like they did in october, we've still got enough quality for a sprint finish.

a lot of the names coming in were the dead wood of clubs we were outplaying not long back, and pointed to a doubling down on the conservative form we've shown since xmas.

if carroll is out for a week or two, a home game against the mancs with sakho and valencia starting is as a good an opportunity for some positivity as we're going to get. won't have much choice given that our defence might be a couple of traffic cones and an old mattress.

carroll has been frequently our best player on the pitch, but if a couple of weeks out is what it takes for our team to rediscover a positive, attacking spirit, then that might be the right medicine. that's why i'm ecstatic we didn't sign a big lump like gomis.

Can't help but feel we have missed a good chance to bolster the squad for a euro push this season.All I see now is us dropping like a stone down the league below Stoke and Swansea and the like after our tough run in playing the dull 4-5-1 ***** like last season.

Strange how every window we seem to get it all wrong, and become a joke club with rubbish machiavellian owners.But looking back, it's small steps forward each time. We have a far better squad now than a year ago. Must have done something right at some point. Sometimes the gains are noticed with hindsight. You can't fix everything at once.

Tonythehammer wrote:Strange how every window we seem to get it all wrong, and become a joke club with rubbish machiavellian owners.But looking back, it's small steps forward each time. We have a far better squad now than a year ago. Must have done something right at some point. Sometimes the gains are noticed with hindsight. You can't fix everything at once.

Except that this past window was a step backwards of course.

Amazing that we could have our best and worst ever windows in the same season!

Hammer83 wrote:Can't help but feel we have missed a good chance to bolster the squad for a euro push this season.All I see now is us dropping like a stone down the league below Stoke and Swansea and the like after our tough run in playing the dull 4-5-1 ***** like last season.

UTJ, in the thick of the evening panic( ) you mentioned that we were potentially looking to secure Mbodj but as a summer arrival IIRC - do you know if that's still the case or whether we've soured the chance with player or club?

Must admit to not being particularly disappointed about still having Carlton and Jarvis, nor missing out on Adebayor.....but the opportunity to get a promising centre half to bed in whilst Winston is still here felt a missed opportunity to me. Mbodj seems quite highly rated so hoping missing him yesterday doesn't then also mean we miss out in the summer if he goes elsewhere..

I don't think yesterday was a bad window, but does feel something of a missed opportunity....especially given the higher we finish the better chance we probably have of keeping Jenkinson, Song and Reid and fighting off offers for any of our other successes from this season. Hope we don't regret in the summer or, worse, start of the next season....but was certainly a positive to not lose Reid, Valencia, Sakho, Noble or Amalfitano after links to moves away.

Joking aside though, I believe that's the calibre of person we should be aiming at. Personally I'd like Benitez. Hated him at Liverpool but he is a top manager and I'd rather he was ours than someone else's.

Pulls up Trees wrote: drama intended, but to me that's the only explanation for his refusal to play Downing at the tip of the diamond despite it revolutionising our season.

Don't agree with that mate, Sam is a professional who is more than aware that without success he's CV takes a battering. I genuinely believe that he is doing what he thinks is best and trusts his own judgement, probably looks down at the porn dwarfs and thinks to himself that they haven't got a clue what they are talking about.Still, I'm not too bothered about the last window, dodged a few bullets and kept our 1st team squad together.

smuts wrote:What's worrying is that these were targets in the first place.

Indeed my thoughts precisely! complete and utter desperation.No thoughts or plans as to what we really needed just get any old player that will do with old being the operative word.Is the manager or the owner targeting these players?